Aching and Anger
by Cheecho
Summary: A few nights in, Hawke and Anders start to understand each other a little bit better, to both their delights.


This is a one shot. My husband was out of town, and I was ... bored. I hope you enjoy.

**Aching and Anger**

* * *

Hawke moved slightly against Anders's side, pulling him the last few inches out of sleep. She nuzzled her nose into the grove of soft throat just behind his jaw. He opened his eyes and could just see the mess of her close-cropped black hair. She wasn't quite awake yet, and Anders took the moment to relish the clean sheets wrapping silkily around his body, the expanse of Hawke's enormous bed spreading out on either side of their bodies, and Hawke herself: warm, close, soft. Anders felt at peace. The raging boil of Justice's vengeance was a deeply buried simmer. It was there, but distant.

Anders came here almost every night, but the novelty of all this comfort had not worn off. He arrived late and tried to leave before Hawke's mother got up or else after she had left for the day. He had met Hawke's mother, soon after Bethany had disappeared into the Wardens' ranks. He'd come, at Hawke's request, to tell Leandra about the Wardens, and he didn't want to see any more disappointment on her face. He was sure that Hawke's mother wanted better for her daughter than she'd chosen for herself.

Guilt snaked up inside him, poisoning his happiness. Justice stirred in his heart. Anders forced himself to stay with his guilt. It welled up, springing, as all the feelings that roused Justice, from grief. Grief at the things he'd never had, grief at the inevitable loss of what he did have. It stung him, stretched his heart not unpleasantly open, but then settled back into the calm, ever present pool. Justice quieted.

Anders closed his eyes and breathed in the laundered smell of Hawke's sheets. He twisted toward her and pulled her body into an embrace. She stirred and nuzzled more deeply into his chest. Hawke did not like to be spoken to when she first woke up, but he could feel her coming out of sleep in the way she was holding her body. Sleeping, Hawke was like a doll or a cat, loose and unresisting. Awake, the tensions that drove all waking minds slipped into her body, and it became harder.

Giving in, finally, to Hawke's interest in him had brought a change in Anders's relationship with Justice. Anders had gained, rather than lost, control. It was as if the spirit fed off emotional flailing about that Anders did to avoid feelings, rather than off the feelings themselves. The irony of this realization was not lost on Anders. If the templars really wanted to avoid the appearance of abominations in mages, perhaps letting them live lives where they could work for real goals and keep love would make it easier for them to say no to the temptations of the demons. But Anders was quite sure that avoiding abominations was not what the templars were motivated by.

Hawke shifted again, fitting the angle of her naked hip under the angle of his naked hip. Her free arm moved to his shoulder and moved over the muscles there. Her touch was not yet amorous, but Anders could tell that it would quickly become so. In these last weeks, they hadn't yet managed to blunt the edges of their long-sharpened frustrations. He smiled at the long list of erotic memories. They were at each other all the time, including once in a cave off the Wounded Coast, where she'd almost soundlessly gotten him off against a damp wall, while Isabella and Varric had struggled with a particularly complex lock in the next cavern. That had been the least satisfying of their encounters, not because it had been so quick – the tension had been building wordlessly between them all day and the encounter had been driven by a necessity that compensated for its brevity – but because Hawke had been sheathed in too much metal to shuck as easily as she got her hands up his robes.

Anders relished the first flush of arousal that the memory brought him. Not for the first time, he deeply regretted resisting all this for so long. It had been stupid. Even without letting him into her bed, she'd helped him often enough and been seen so frequently in his company that she was already a target for anyone aiming at him. And he'd long ago lost the ability to treat her as one more ally in his fight. Allies were valued, but expendable, but Anders would have sacrificed all the mages at the Gallows to keep Hawke safe. There was guilt when he thought this but a guilt he was at peace with. He was, after all, still a man, despite his desire to do right by the mages.

He turned to her for a long, insistent kiss. He wasn't sure where her just-waking thoughts had taken her, but she easily matched him, and before they broke apart, his erection was pushing into her and she was grinding gently against it.

He leaned back to look at her. Her lips were swollen and parted and her yellow eyes met his. He bent a lock of her dark bangs so that it pointed along the curve of her eyebrow, then ran his hand eagerly over her arms. "Good morning, sweetheart."

She smiled at him and set her head at a tilt. "Good morning," she said and then kissed him again, arching her body so that her warm breasts flattened into his chest. He ran his hands down her torso, cupped her ass, and pulled her into him. She broke the kiss, "What were you thinking of while I was waking up?"

"The cave on the Coast. You flipping my robes over my waist and taking me in your mouth while Varric told Isabella that she was doing the lock wrong."

"Mmmm," she hummed at him appreciatively. "You came really hard." She tilted her head coyly, "But I can't remember why we thought it was a good idea. A cave. Honestly." She took the end of his earlobe in her teeth.

"It is a good idea everywhere." He bent his mouth back to hers, but she evaded him.

"Know what I was thinking about?" He settled for kissing her along the line of her chin. "I was thinking about that first night that you came here, and how you said you'd been aching for me all along." Anders slowed his movement along her jaw. There was nothing in her tone to discourage him, but she clearly had some game in mind and he didn't want to rush her past telling him about it. "Did you ever think about me and take care of that ache alone?"

"Of course I did," he said, gruffly. "All the time." She opened her legs and he could smell her: a slight sweatiness, arousal. Anders had had lovers before, many of them, but he liked the smell of Hawke best. He liked the taste of her mouth. He reached up to take her chin in his hand so that he could force his mouth on hers, but she evaded him again.

"And what sorts of things was I doing when you were thinking of me?" Hawke was no amateur either, and she had the right, lightly playful, tone, but all the pleasant lusting drained out of him, and for the first time, he considered lying to her.

* * *

It had been another slow day. The refugees were becoming thinner in Darktown. Either they were gaining enough money to move to the slightly nicer Lowtown, fleeing Kirkwall, or dying. Anders had heard that King Alistair and High Chancellor Anora were actively attempting to recall Fereldans back to their homeland, and he hoped that some of his patients had agreed to go.

In a way, this made Anders more vulnerable. The exodus of the refugees in Darktown meant that there were fewer recipients of the templars' attention when they made their patrols, and he knew that they'd come for him eventually, just to make their quota of apostates. It was ridiculous, he thought, that they hadn't come for him already. Someone in Hightown must be leaning on them. His thought of Hawke, as they often did, but he didn't think she had that kind of power. He doubted Aveline's capacity and as much as any desire she might have to shield him. It must be some noble that he'd agreed to treat, or maybe one of few sympathetic templars that Hawke and he had run into already.

Whatever the reason behind his continued freedom, Anders had taken to spending his nights away from the clinic. Sometimes he stayed with the patients that he was most friendly with, and sometimes he found an empty piece of wall. As he closed the clinic door – habit, really, since anyone could walk through the rotting wall right beside it – he decided to go to the Nolens tonight. He'd been treating their little girl for all the years he'd been in Kirkwall – she was sickly and living in Darktown had only worsened her list of complaints: breathing troubles; dry skin that cracked open and wouldn't heal; eyes that expelled pus in the mornings. Anders was reasonably sure that the girl had some magic, but it was unlikely to express itself while her body was so broken. He ought to check on them.

He was cutting his exit close to curfew tonight, so he moved quickly and as close to the walls as he could. He wasn't the only person still rushing along the streets, but he was by far the best dressed, and he was struck again by the ridiculousness of the templars leaving him alone. Justice stirred uneasily. Regardless, he made it unharassed to the Nolens' home. The place already had an unused, dusty feel to it, so Anders was not surprised when the door swung open at his knock.

As far as visiting the homes of people who hadn't told him that they were leaving went, this looked pretty good. The only clothes left behind were those most in need of mending, and the family's few pots and the jar of cooking salt were gone. If Anders had to guess, he'd say that they left voluntarily and with some planning. It wasn't that unusual that they hadn't told him. Anders didn't really have friends amoung his patients, so they didn't really think of saying goodbye to him. He moved into the room and closed the door behind him. There was a latch that would keep the door from blowing open, but would crack at the pressure of a hand. He latched it.

Along the far wall, there were three piles of clean rags. Each was almost long enough for a person. Anders supposed they probably took enough of the rags to make pillows for themselves where ever their journey was going to take them next. Anders hoped it was Fereldan. Or at least outside a city. He dropped the bedroll he'd brought from the clinic, and piled all the rags into a single, thick mattress. He dug a small ditch along the wall, so that there was a ridge of rags between him and the door. It wouldn't really keep anyone from seeing him, but it felt more secure. Anders unrolled the bedclothes and tucked himself inside.

He lay awake for some time, listening alternatively for armoured steps and to the wind that moved the thin walls slightly. After some time, perhaps an hour, he concluded that the templars would not be raiding tonight. He considered going back to the clinic but decided against it. He was half expecting – partly in dread and partly with impatience – Hawke to show up one night, and he didn't think he could turn her away if she did. She had touched him that day, while they were exploring a set of tunnels under Darktown. He'd moved a little past her down the tunnels when Varric had warned them loudly and suddenly of a trap. Hawke had caught his arm before he stepped on the trigger. She had touched him before, but he hadn't been expecting it this time and he was still humming with the magic and victory of the battle. She dropped his arm almost at once without looking at him, but Anders had seen Isabella smirk at him.

He imagined that she'd come to him in that armour she had that curved up and out at her hips. It was clearly armour designed for a woman to wear – it managed to suggest the shape of her body while still actually protecting it. Anders remembered the Hero of Fereldan running around in Chasind robes. They were thigh-high leggings, a loincloth, and a deeply plunging neckline. He wasn't even sure how she managed to keep her breasts inside it. Tar, maybe. The rumour was that she'd killed the Archdemon wearing nothing else, but Anders doubted it. The King would never have permitted her to try, and she occasionally listened to him. Anders was willing to bet that she'd gathered her armies in it though. He'd yet to see someone say no to her while she was in them. Hawke was more practical, and he liked that. Still vain, but practical.

His blood rose as he imagined her walking, at night, into his clinic in her armour. She'd look at him the way she did. In a group, Hawke was always funny, but when she visited him alone, she was sincere, with a look of gentle longing around her eyes. She was persistent in her hints and kind when she ignored his warnings or listened to him talk about his problems. He wondered if she was like that when she visited everyone else. Most of her friends seemed as committed to her as he was.

He broke off that line of thinking. It soured the buzz that was building in his groin.

He imagined her walking, again, into the clinic. She'd look as she always did, but more so. The last time she'd come to see him, he'd told her about the templars' raids and he'd seen a flash of something else cross her face. Worry, maybe. Fear? He imagined that she'd have that same intense look when she came, alone and at night. Her mouth would be open.

"What are you doing here?" he imagined himself asking.

"Tempting you," she'd say. Anders felt all his resistance falling away. No, if she showed up one night, alone and too late to be spent home, that'd be it. Maker, if he was honest, if she made anything more than a comment to encourage him, that'd be it.

Anders had a brief vision of her taking him by the straps on his robes and pulling his very willing body towards her, not so gentle anymore, but breaking through the excuses he kept throwing at her to keep her safe from him. He felt Justice stir in him again, and he closed his eyes against the spirit's anger – he wasn't even sure it was his anger anymore, but he supposed it must be. Justice wouldn't care about a thwarted sexual relationship when mages were dying all around Kirkwall.

It would be terrible if she came to him in her amour. Her amour, as decadently shaped as it was, was like a statue – you couldn't make love to it, and Anders would not know how to take it off. It would really ruin the flow. He imagined her coming, instead, in the civilian clothes she'd worn when she convinced him, Merrill, and Varric to come for dinner that one night soon after she'd bought the estate. Anders had never seen her legs before, and he'd been distracted by the play of the long muscles all through dinner. Her body seemed more real to him that night, looser under the linen when she'd leaned towards him, offering wine, which he had wisely refused.

Anders felt his erection growing. At the Circle, mages caught pleasuring themselves by the templars were treated even more roughly than the mages finding pleasure with each other, and Anders had learnt to let his fantasies do most of the work for him, so he could finish quickly, in a stroke or two. He pressed his back against the ridge of rags, seeking the tactile feedback. He imagined Hawke on her back on one of the cots in the clinic, himself between those bare legs. He imagined touching the skin of her thighs, pushing her skirt up. Her head lolled back and she pushed herself at him. She was hot and wet. Anders imagined reaching for her.

But she could never walk through Darktown in finery. The templars knew she knew him, but if she wasn't in armour, they could pretend they didn't recognize her. They'd take her. Anders felt Justice burning in him, and his eyes stung. He could never let Hawke come to him. He saw her again in his clinic, but instead of her pulling him towards her, his anger pushed her against the wall, a hand on her throat. He hoped she would never come to him, that he'd never have to turn her away at night, when he was loneliest, when he thought of her most persistently. He imagined her head pinned between his mouth and the wall, imagined pulling her clothes off her, fast and rough. She squirmed in pleasure and he hoisted her against the wall, mauling one of her breasts with his hand.

"Hawke, I would kill them if they hurt you," he tried to remember telling her, but Hawke's face had become blurred in his imagination, a blue haze between him and her. Anders knew if he opened his eyes, he'd see a faint blue flicker in his skin, not breaking out, but glowing in the veins. He pushed the blurring face away from him, imagined pressing a pillow over her face so that she was no one, just a body that he was going to use. A body that anyone could hurt after he was done with it. He pushed her thighs apart, too fast and too hard and she whimpered at the stretch, but he took himself in hand and forced himself inside her. She was hot and tight and she pressed all around him. He pulled all the way out, and forced himself back in again, hard. She made a soft, strangled noise of pain, and he pushed on her face, as if trying to push it through the wall, away and back to Hightown.

Anders was properly angry now. Angry at the Circle and the templars for pushing him to say no to her again and again. Angry at Justice for taking even this fantasy away from him in a rush of anger he couldn't control. Angry at himself for thinking of Hawke this way when it had only been a day ago that he'd sworn to keep her safe. Angry for being angry.

He was panting, he realized, and he felt himself half stir without his consent in his bedroll on the nest of rags. He wanted to rise, an avenger, and hunt the streets of Darktown. Maybe the templars were patrolling some other street and he just hadn't heard them.

In desperation, he pulled himself out of the bedroll and groped around for the hem of his robes, pulling them away when he found them. He was as hard as he had ever been and he imagined Hawke again, against the wall and at the mercy of his pleasure. He wanted to hurt her. He imagined the slick resistance of her flesh as he moved his hand so hard it hurt him. He couldn't even see her upper torso anymore, just the feel of a breast in one hand and her ass in his other hand. He imagined pulling her away from the wall and pushing her to the table where he mixed potions. He bent her over the table, pinning both arms behind her back with one hand and spreading her ass with his other. With no preparation, he spread her open and forced himself inside her. Before, he had imagined her as wet and slick, but now he imagined her dry and stiff and heard her groan of pain as he slammed into her again and again. He grabbed the back of her head and forced her face harder into the splintering wood. She had tempted him and he was angry. Angry at her ability to move him, angry at his inability to have her.

He was fast approaching and he lost himself in the real sensation of his hand and the pleasure rushing hard at him. He groaned again, remembered Hawke's leg uncrossing in the chair beside him at her house, and he exploded with that real memory behind his eyes.

He held himself for a little while, feeling it all cool off. Justice was receding again in the lull of Anders's uneasy contentedness. In his fantasy, Hawke wasn't even in his clinic anymore, like her persona had withdrawn from the ill-use of his imagination. Anders groped for a rag, wiped himself off, and buried the rag in the cleaner ones. He readjusted his robes and stole back inside the bedroll, guilt creeping over him. He imagined holding Hawke gently, imagined brushing a piece of her hair to the side and kissing the side of her mouth tenderly, but he didn't feel like he deserved to think of it. He tucked the memory of her beside him and finally, exhausted and ragged, fell asleep.

* * *

"Why do you want to know?" Anders tried to keep his tone light but was pretty sure that he was failing.

If Hawke noticed, she didn't show it. "I thought I could do the things you imagined while you told me about them." She was purring in his ear and he felt himself responding. Again. "I want to know how you imagined me."

Anders moved his head away so that she couldn't see his face. "Remember when I said I didn't have any control around you?" He forced all the desire out of his tone, but her voice was no less kind when she responded that she did. "I didn't. I was afraid that I'd lose it completely if I let myself touch you."

"But you didn't," she reminded him.

"I know, but I just about did every time I thought about you. I wanted you so badly, and I'd get so angry. Hawke, I... it got pretty violent."

"Did you enjoy it?"

Anders supposed he had. He'd repeated that scenario – with variations – in his clinic more than once, always flirting with Justice's anger and his prohibition about touching himself.

"Do you remember when we first met, and I said I wouldn't mind if you hurt me a little bit?"

"Yes."

"I am very happy that things turned out the way they did. When you were here that first night, it was so good and sweet." Hawke put her palm flat on his chest and kissed him. It was gentle, a brief brush of lips that caught his skin. He rolled them both over so that he was lying between her bent knees, like he had that first night. The long muscles of her thighs rose on either side of him, and he put a hand on one of them as he kissed her back, harder than she'd kissed him. He opened her mouth with his mouth and ran his tongue against hers. He pushed gently on her leg so that it opened wider. Her knees stayed bent and he felt her slit shift open. When he moved to touch her there, she broke the kiss and continued, "But before that happened, I always imagined that you'd just break down and take me. Like you couldn't help yourself. I thought about it when I laying here alone, thinking about you and touching myself."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I am much stronger and much tougher than you, Anders, and I will tell you if you hurt me in a way that I don't want to be hurt." He looked at her doubtfully. "Tell you what. How about you tell me about some little piece of it, and I'll find some other use for my mouth. When you want to switch, I'll tell you what I thought about." She placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed gently to encourage him to lie on his back. "Did you ever think about my mouth on you?"

"Yes," he said, resisting.

"Was I on my knees?" She asked, while she moved to settle herself between his.

"Yes," he said, looking away from her. She kissed the crease between his thigh and his groin.

"Was I dressed?"

"Kind of." It had shifted in his mind, so he could imagine touching her skin for the first time again and again.

"Mmmmmm," she hummed into his leg. He spread his legs. Hawke was very good with her mouth. "Were you?"

"Yes. We were in my clinic." Hawke rewarded this piece of volunteered information by sliding her tongue gently over his testicles. He moved a hand to her head. "You had come to see me. You were tempting me." He was growing exciting despite himself, but Justice was nowhere to be found. "I took your head in my hand." He twined his fingers through her hair but did not force her to move.

"Did I want you to?" He could feel her breath against him as she spoke.

"No," He said, shame and excitement mixing. "You didn't want me to."

Hawke pushed against his hand, trying to move her head away, but he stopped her, holding her no closer to him, but not farther away either. "Did you make me?"

"Yes," he groaned, the memory of his imagined violence rising in him. He remembered threatening her to be good, taking her head in both his hands. She reached around him, cupped his ass in her hand and pulled him toward her mouth. He allowed her to move him forward a fraction of an inch and she rewarded him by falling foward onto him, pushing her tongue forward against his thrust even as he slid past her lips. He made a quiet, pleasured noise. Hawke paused in her motion, but Anders did not seem likely to take any more initiative. She moved her hand so that one finger was laying along the opening of his anus, quite a bit lighter than he liked best. He moved back, seeking that pleasure, and she let him slide back out of his mouth as he moved himself around her finger. He took a firmer grip on her hair and looked down at her captive head, her lips sliding over him, then rose for a better view. "Get on your knees," he said, half strangled. She obeyed.

All in all, it was much gentler than either had imagined, but it was well past morning when they finally emerged, very satisfied and no more hurt than either had wanted.


End file.
